HYLOMORPHISM
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'Hylomorphism' (Greek ''υλο-'' 'hylo-', "wood, matter" + '-morphism' < Greek ''-μοÏφη'', 'morph', "form") is the philosophical theory, originating with Aristotle, which divides substance into matter and form. Hylomorphism served as a useful tool in Medieval philosophy from (at least) Avicebron to (at least) Thomas Aquinas.
Matter and Form
According to Aristotle, each substance consists of a passive principle, which he called "matter", and an active organizing principle, which he called "form". The form of a thing gives that thing its nature. Totally unformed matter — "primary matter" — is pure potential without any actual properties; thus, it's only a concept and can't actually exist in the real world.[1] The most basic forms are the forms of the elements.[2] These elementary forms, acting upon or informing primary matter, give us the four classical elements — earth, fire, air, and water. These elements are indivisible and the simplest things in existence.[3] The elements are then organized by more complex forms into a multitude of things. For example, the forms of flesh and bone organize the elements into flesh and bones; the forms of various organs organize flesh and bones into various organs; and the form of humanity organizes various organs into a human being.[4]
These "forms" are not just generalizations: when Aristotle says that humans share a common "form", he doesn't simply mean that every human body happens to be shaped similarly. For Aristotle, a being's form is a real principle that organizes that being: a sprouting acorn is "striving" to conform to the form of an oak tree.[5] According to Aristotle, in Nature "the operative principle is not matter but form".[6] Different oak trees are different pieces of matter that are all governed by the same form, the form of an oak tree. According to Aristotle, the "soul" of a living being is its form.[7] (By defining "soul" this way, Aristotle denies the existence of personal souls: for him, a being's "soul" is simply the form that it shares with all other members of its species.[1])
Change
Hylomorphism as a non-mechanistic account of change
Hylomorphism can be seen as an alternative to mechanistic explanations of how change happens. According to a mechanistic worldview, an acorn grows into an oak tree because the matter in the acorn rearranges itself into the arrangement we call an oak tree: when we say that all acorns pursue the "form" of an oak tree, we're simply making a generalization about how matter arranged in one way (an acorn) will, due to mechanical laws, rearrange itself into a different configuration (an oak tree). The word "oak tree" is just a label given to a certain arrangement of matter: it has no reality apart from particular oak trees.
In contrast, according to hylomorphism, the term "oak tree" corresponds to an objective reality apart from any particular oak tree. When an acorn grows into an oak tree, it's "striving" after the form of an oak tree: the meaning of the term "oak tree" exists as an objective goal that matter pursues.[8] Hylomorphism presents a ''teleological'' world — a world driven by purpose: everything has a goal toward which it strives.[8]
Arguments for hylomorphism as an explanation of change
Aristotle saw hylomorphism as the best way to explain change. By definition, change happens when one thing becomes another thing. But if one thing has "become" another thing, then those two things must have something in common. If an acorn and an oak tree have nothing in common, if no principle endures while the acorn disappears and the tree appears, then the acorn hasn't "become" the tree: rather, the acorn has simply vanished, and the tree has appeared out of nowhere. Because the acorn presumably does become the tree, the acorn and the tree must share an underlying principle that doesn't change: according to Aristotle, that's matter. At the same time, there must be something the acorn and tree don't have in common, a principle that drives the change: according to Aristotle, that's form. In Aristotle's system, change happens when matter loses one form and gains another.[10]
Some modern philosophers, such as Patrick Suppes in ''Probabilistic Metaphysics'', argue that hylomorphism offers a better conceptual framework for the Standard Model of particle physics than purely mechanistic versions of atomism.
The Unmoved Mover
According to Aristotle, in most beings, form needs matter as much as matter needs form. The form of humanity can't exist on its own; it needs to exist in particular human beings. However, Aristotle reasoned that there must be an ultimate source of all motion, and that it must be pure form.[11] This being doesn't need matter because it isn't a particular instance of a form; rather, it is the ideal Form toward which all other beings strive.[12] Thus, it's the "unmoved mover" of the universe: all beings achieve the degree of perfection that they achieve by striving after this being's perfection.[13]
Many medieval Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians, particularly the Thomist theologians, applied Aristotelian notions of an Unmoved Mover to religious notions of God.
Medieval debate over hylomorphism
Medieval scholastic theologians generally accepted hylomorphism, but they didn't completely agree on how far to apply it. Specifically, they didn't agree about whether to apply hylomorphism to spiritual beings such as angels and human souls.
The human soul
According to Aristotle, a human's soul is his form. However, this seems to imply that the individual soul ceases to exist after death. In Aristotle's system, different human beings are different pieces of matter, but they share the same form — the form of humanity. There's no individual soul that survives death.[2]
This posed a problem for the medieval Christian philosophers. Christian doctrine seemed to state that humans have individual souls that can continue to exist individually after death. Thus, medieval philosophers sympathetic toward Aristotle faced a dilemma. On one hand, they could accept Aristotle's definition of the soul as pure form, but at the expense of having to explain how the individual soul could survive death. On the other hand, they could define the soul as a substance made of both form and matter, but at the expense of contradicting Aristotle. Some medieval thinkers, such as Saint Thomas Aquinas, agreed with Aristotle that the soul is pure form.[14] Others, such as Saint Bonaventure, argued that the human soul must consist of both form and matter: thus, it must contain some kind of "spiritual matter", but still be able to act upon the body's corporeal matter as its form.[15]
Angels
Some medieval thinkers, such as Aquinas, argued that angels are pure form without matter.[16] Recall that, in Aristotle's system, different members of a species are different pieces of matter that share the same form. It follows that "matter is the element that gives a substance its individuality; form is the element that gives it universality".[17] If angels are pure form without matter, then each angel is its own unique form, a species unto itself.[18] The idea that each angel is a unique "species" or "genus" provided a convenient explanation for the Christian belief that fallen angels can't be saved: Christ could assume human nature to save all humans, but he couldn't likewise save fallen angels, for each angel has its own individual nature.[19]
Others, such as Bonaventure, argued that angels, like everything else, must consist of both matter and form. Bonaventure knew of Aquinas's idea "that each angel constitutes a single species", but he thought that one should accept "so strange a theory" only if it Scripture explicitly supported it or if logic absolutely demanded it.[18] Unlike Aquinas, Bonaventure concluded that angels share a common angelic form. According to Aristotle, different individuals can have the same form only if they're different pieces of matter: "The form is the principle of the species, and therefore it is not this that is the basis of the individuality of beings as such; consequently it must be the matter."[21] Thus, according to Bonaventure, angels must contain "spiritual matter" as well as form.[22]
A false dilemma?
Historian Etienne Gilson argues[23] that Aquinas's and Bonaventure's positions don't necessarily contradict each other. Aquinas defines "matter" more or less as a physicist would: he identifies matter with corporeal matter. If "matter" means corporeality, then Aquinas is right to think that spiritual beings such as angels and souls can't contain matter.
However, Bonaventure defines matter more abstractly: for him, "matter" is the principle in each thing that makes it a particular thing: it's what makes an angel ''this particular'' angel, in contrast to the form, which is angelhood-in-general. In itself, Bonaventure's matter is neither corporeal nor spiritual: it becomes corporeal if joined with the form of a corporeal being, and spiritual if joined with the form of a spiritual being.
See also
★ Aristotle
★ Change
★ Endurantism
★ Hyle
★ Hylozoism
★ Identity and change
★ Matter
★ Materialism
★ Substance theory
References
1. Michael Huemer, "The Physics of the Sublunar Region", ''Mike's Web Page'', 14 July 2007
4. Stocks, p. 65
5. Frost, p. 13
6. Stocks, p. 67
7. Stocks, p. 70
8. Frost, p. 15
9. Frost, p. 15
10. "hylomorphism." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 15 July 2007
13. Stocks, p. 49; Frost, p. 15; "Western Concepts of God", ''The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''
16. David Keck, ''Angels & Angelology in the Middle Ages'' (NY: Oxford UP, 1998), pp. 98-99
17. William R. Cook and Ronald B. Herzman, ''The Medieval World View'' (NY: Oxford UP, 1983), p. 32.
18. Gilson, p. 247
19. Jeffrey Burton Russell, ''Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages'' (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1986), p. 40
20. Gilson, p. 247
21. Gilson, p. 248
22. Gilson, p. 249
23. Gilson, p. 249-50. Keck paraphrases this passage on p. 99
External links
★ Concise Britannica
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